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Bud Scoppa Bud Scoppa

Bud Scoppa’s multifaceted four-decade career has encompassed writing about pop music, editing music mags and working in the music business, primarily in an A&R capacity.

Over the years, the veteran journalist has contributed to virtually every major music publication, including Rolling Stone, Creem, Rock, Fusion, Crawdaddy! and Phonograph Record, while also doing stints as the editor of Music Connection, Cash Box and Hits. When not writing about music, he was helping to create it at the Mercury, A&M, Arista, Zoo, Discovery and Sire labels.

He authored the long-out-of-print paperbacks The Byrds (Scholastic, 1971, priced at 75 cents but now fetching prices in the $8 range on eBay) and The Rock People (Scholastic, 1972; collected interviews) and penned the liner notes for Rhino’s Little Feat box set Hotcakes and Outtakes (2000), for which he received a Grammy nomination (but lost to some guy who wrote about Miles Davis), as well as the notes for Columbia/Legacy's Simon & Garfunkel reissues (2001) and Rhino’s 40th anniversary Woodstock box (2009). His notes also accompany reissues and collections on Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly and the Easy Rider soundtrack.

Presently, Scoppa is senior editor at Hits and industry-news site hitsdailydouble.com. His current outlets include Uncut and Paste, while his work also appears in the School of Rock and Sound Of... sections of the iTunes Store. He blogs for rocksbackpages.com and his own budscorner (http://scoppaoohmaumau.blogspot.com)

Scoppa banged out his first record review in 1969; his initial outlets were Rock, Fusion and Crawdaddy! He was barely breaking even in this new pursuit until he discovered that he didn't actually have to buy the records he was reviewing. In his first label gig, working alongside his mentor, Paul Nelson, at Mercury, Scoppa was exposed firsthand to the idiosyncratic delights of the New York Dolls, Blue Ash, Doug Sahm and Jerry Lee Lewis. During that period, he moonlighted as a Rolling Stone reviewer, rhapsodizing about Big Star, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Gram Parsons, Little Feat, Nick Drake, Harry Nilsson, the Eagles, Mott the Hoople and Brinsley Schwartz. Moving in the fall of 1973 from W. 57th St. to that Camelot on La Brea Ave., A&M Records, Scoppa worked with the Tubes, Nils Lofgren, Supertramp, Squeeze and George Harrison, while contributing to Rolling Stone, Phonograph Record and Creem.

A move to the West Coast office of Arista in 1978 coincided with the burgeoning skinny-tie movement, inspiring Scoppa to sign and A&R the Pop, the Bus Boys and Elton Duck; he also inherited the company's Lakers season tickets during Magic Johnson's rookie season, initiating a love affair with the team that continues unabated. He won some job security (but lost some credibility) by overnighting 'Lost in Love', an import single by Air Supply, to boss Clive Davis.

In 1983, Scoppa launched a career as a magazine editor, heading up the editorial staffs of Music Connection, Cash Box and Hits, before returning to labeldom in 1990 at startup Zoo Entertainment, where he signed and A&R'd Matthew Sweet, the Odds and Neal Casal. When Zoo hit the wall, Scoppa landed an A&R gig at Discovery Records, which morphed into Sire, where he signed Jolene and worked with Taxiride.

But Sire, like Zoo before it, began to unravel, so Scoppa returned to Hits at the beginning of the current millennium, becoming managing editor and a principal in the launch of hitsdailydouble.com, which is now bookmarked on the computers of thousands of music-biz toilers, while contributing to Rolling Stone, Paste, Tracks (RIP), Ice (ditto), Mix and Uncut. Fortunately, the records still come in the mail (in both physical and downloadable forms). And so it goes.

Bud's RBP blog


List of articles in the library by artist

Phonograph Record

Phonograph Record

Phonograph Record

Crawdaddy!

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

unpublished

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Crawdaddy!

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Revolver

Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels (Rhino)

Circus

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Circus Raves

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

unpublished

Phonograph Record

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Crawdaddy!

Phonograph Record

Crawdaddy!

The Record

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Phonograph Record

Creem

Rolling Stone

Circus

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Circus

Phonograph Record

Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels (Rhino)

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Circus

Rolling Stone

Rock's Backpages

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

The Record

Creem

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Creem

Creem

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Uncut

Uncut

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rhino Records

Rhino Records

Rolling Stone

The Record

Rolling Stone

Crawdaddy!

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Circus

Phonograph Record

Circus

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Phonograph Record

Sounds

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels (Rhino)

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Creem

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Uncut

Circus

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rock's Backpages

Phonograph Record

Revolver

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Sony Legacy

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Music Connection

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Circus

Rolling Stone

Crawdaddy!

Rock Magazine

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Circus

Circus

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Revolver

Rolling Stone

sonicnet.com

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Guitar World

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Phonograph Record

Creem

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Rolling Stone

NME

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Rock's Backpages

Rolling Stone

Phonograph Record

Creem

Creem

Phonograph Record

List of genre pieces

Rock's Backpages

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